Name That Writer

 Here's a question that I think would flummox everyone in any literary quiz: 
Whose first novel begins with this sentence? 

'In this dream where he was weightless and unalive, where he was a pervading mist of consciousness that seethed and trembled in a vast stretch of dark, there was at first no feeling, only a dim sort of apperception, eyeless, brainless and remote, whose singular ability was to differentiate between himself and the darkness.'

Give up? Well, here's a clue, or rather more than a clue. This same writer's third novel begins like this: 

'William Stoner entered the University of Missouri as a freshman in the year 1910, at the age of nineteen. Eight years later, during the height of World War I, he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree and accepted an instructorship at the same university, where he taught until his death in 1956. He did not rise above the rank of assistant professor, and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his course... Stoner's colleagues, who held him in no particular esteem when he was alive, speak of him rarely now; to the older ones, his name is a reminder of the end that awaits them all, to the younger ones it is merely a sound which evokes no sense of the past and no identity with which they can associate themselves or their careers.'

Yes, it's John Williams, whose masterpiece Stoner, after being barely noticed for years, broke through and became a massive hit somewhere around 2010 (45 years after it was published). I've read Stoner at least twice, and written about it (e.g. here), but had never come across a book about Stoner until a blog friend warmly recommended one to me – William Stoner and the Battle for the Inner Life by Steve Almond. This recommendation was then equally warmly withdrawn, but by then I'd picked up a copy of the book, so, intrigued, I started in to read it. 
I soon discovered both why my friend had recommended it, and why he had so dramatically changed his mind. Almond's book begins as an interesting, often incisive, if sometimes overheated study of Williams's book, written in the light of Almond's amazed discovery of it when he was fresh from a 'creative writing' course and so steeped in 'show, don't tell' dogma that he could scarcely believe his eyes when he read that opening paragraph of Stoner. So far, so good, but as the book goes on, Almond himself, who is clearly a rather tiresome, self-advertising type, elbows his way to centre stage. He, his life story, his marital history, his political views (anti-Trump, you'll be astounded to learn  – clearly this is a man who doesn't mind going out on a limb) become the subject, rather than Stoner. This is a shame, because embedded in this book is the germ of a much better, and shorter, one – perhaps a long essay. It's a pity Almond was so fascinated by himself that he couldn't keep his gaze (which is often acute) focused on Stoner. I gave up well before the end.